“There's a liberal story that limited opportunities, and barriers, lead to employment problems and criminal records, but then there's another story that… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“In those days I imagined racism as a tumor that could be isolated and removed from the body of America, not as… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
White racial grievance enjoys automatic credibility, and even when disproven, it is never disqualifying of its bearers. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Some of us make it out. But the game is played with loaded dice. I wish I had known more, and I… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation: These bonded white people into a broad aristocracy united by the salient fact of unblackness.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The thing people have to remember is there's nothing natural about racism as it exists in America. I mean, we know this… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage. An unsegregated America might see poverty,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The civil rights generation is exiting the American stage—not in a haze of nostalgia but in a cloud of gloom, troubled by… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system. It was made that way. And what… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“I came up in segregated West Baltimore. I understood black as a culture—as Etta James, jumping the broom, the Electric Slide. I… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The precise ancestry of a black drug dealer or cop killer is irrelevant. His blackness predicts and explains his crime. He reinforces… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“To Trump whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The focus on one sector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
What I am telling you is that you do not need to know to love, and it is right that you feel it all… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I think 'Dear White People,' the show, is a tremendous artistic achievement. It's always hinting that there is something beyond the pleading and wokeness,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself. The… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It's the weight on our shoulders. That is what's actually different. We… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Like a lot of people, I'm very, very concerned about Senator Clinton's record. I'm very, very concerned about where her positions were in the… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“I drove away, as always, thinking of you. I do not believe that we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves.… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The mainstream sort of presentation of the civil rights movement was not something that I directly inherited. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image